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Throughout his career, Wes Craven created some of the most arresting, disturbing and genuinely haunting moments in horror cinema. That they were contained in some of the genre's most provocative and striking titles, is testament to his power as a filmmaker and a weaver of unsettling dreams... Very unsettling dreams.

Filmmaker Wes Craven, best known for intelligent and provocative horror titles such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream and The Last House on the Left, has died at the age of 76. He had been diagnosed with brain cancer and passed away at his home in LA, leaving behind his wife Iya Labunka, and his two children Jonathan and Jessica.

Craven’s impact on the landscape of shock cinema came early in his career with searingly gritty and subversive titles such as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes. These films presented levels of violence and graphic realism in ways rarely seen before. What became clear though was that despite the brutality of his work, Wes Craven’s films were intelligent and strangely philosophical; he frequently addressed themes such as familial strife, generational conflict, class, race, teenage angst, dreams and man-made monsters. While at college he studied literature and psychology before moving on to earn a Masters in philosophy. Prior to his work as …